Have you ever wondered what the world would have been like if evolution took a different route? If our primitive ancestors mutated a slightly different way, if selective breeding had been a lot less shallow/intelligent and if different organisms were formed? Humans, as we know ourselves today, would have looked completely different; thus so would our perception of beauty. Who knows, in a different world where all these changes could have taken place, 'humans' could've considered 5 heads to be beautiful, holes for ears to be sexy, or even a long nose all the way to the floor, to be most desirable. Think, how would our fashion magazines differ?
I began by using primary photos and magazine images to create photo manipulations of animals and humans, and then illustrated them freehand. I used Derwent Graphic Soft pencils in H, 4B and 9B, also Uni Pin fine liner in 0.05, 0.1, and 0.4 .
After taking this image into Photoshop, I then decided to play around with effects, inspired by artist, Vinz. To see if I would like the effect, I used Nate Strombergs collage of 1940's newspapers in the background, and luckily, it was a success.
Following the success of Nate Stromberg's collage in the background, I decided to go to the library and collect some photographs of old art and design journals from the 1960's. I wanted to create the 'old' effect, so I thought that the best way to do this would be through collecting old journal pages. I think this adds interest, as personally I found the articles interesting which we're used in my own collage, and I think combining modern day art with work from a previous era was a nice hybrid. Some of the illustrations came out well and some did not. I feel like I should have created more photomanipulations to illustrate from so that I had more choice, as some of the visual appearances of my illustrations are not too great, and this my lack of enthusiasm shows in my ability. On the other hand, some of the illustrations came out really well. I believe that they all work well together and depict my idea.
I also responded to the theme 'Hybridity' in multiple ways, as my illustrations were created using a hybrid method - combining different medias (pen, pencil, fine liner etc.), combining eras (work created today, but with elements from 1960's) and also combining freehand illustration with digital art.
I think that all of my research artists inspired by final works as there is suggestions to each of them throughout my creation method. I also kept the idea of the Cabinet Of Curiosities in mind, as to me a Cabinet of Curiosity is a collection which provokes question; thus I do believe that my works provoke a question about our perception of 'beauty'. Also, by merging humans with animals I created my own chimera and exquisite corpse. I cut out images of animals, and placed them onto a models face, creating my own series of hybrids.
Overall I am pleased with the outcome, but if I could improve, I would create more of a variety to chose the best illustrations.
